


A Kind of Knowing

by PsychGirl (snycock)



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Fix-It, Johnlock Roulette, M/M, Missing Scene, Post-Episode: s04e03 The Final Problem
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-14
Updated: 2017-03-14
Packaged: 2018-10-04 22:43:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,934
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10291895
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/snycock/pseuds/PsychGirl
Summary: The events at Musgrave forced Sherlock to face some truths - now what is he going to do about it?





	

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first effort to make sense of the mess that was The Final Problem, and figure out how Sherlock and John got to what was clearly living happily-ever-after in Baker Street together, raising Rosie. Assume everything in The Final Problem happened the way it seemed to. 
> 
> Thank you to telly_which and Shiredancer for the beta. Also thanks to Ariane DeVere (http://arianedevere.livejournal.com/) for her fantastic transcripts.

Sherlock raced down the path from the house to the well, heart pounding in time with his footsteps. John. Was John all right? Eurus said that she had stopped the water, but John had said his feet were chained… what if it had been too late? He hadn’t heard anything from John since he’d talked to him in the cemetery. What if the water had risen too high, what if they couldn’t get his feet unchained, what if he’d already succumbed….

 _Can’t think about that now._ He pushed the thoughts out of his head and ran faster. 

The blue and red flashers of the police cars strobed eerily over the small clearing as he skidded to a stop. The well gaped like an open mouth, dark and hungry, a thick rope running over the edge and vanishing into the depths. 

There was an ambulance pulled up next to the well, the back doors thrown open. Sherlock could see that it was empty. And on the other side, a shape on a stretcher, covered with a blanket. 

_No._

A human shape.

_John..._

He felt like he’d been shot again. There was the same punch to his solar plexus, the same inability to draw breath, the same graying at the edges of his vision. His body went numb. He couldn’t move, couldn’t speak, couldn’t do anything but stare helplessly at the shape under the blanket.

_Too late…_

Eurus’ voice rang mockingly in his head. _Who now will find him, why nobody will… doom shall I bring to him, I who am queen…_

He was falling again, falling into space, but this time there would be nowhere to land. Nothing to stop him from falling forever. 

“They think the bones are from a young boy, maybe six or eight years. But they’re old – several decades old.”

The world came flooding back in a rush. Sherlock sucked in a lungful of air and turned to his left to behold John Watson, wrapped in a gray wool blanket, shivering and damp… but alive. Gloriously, fantastically alive.

“We’ll get a better idea of how old once Molly gets a hold of them, of course. Bit embarrassing, to be honest – I should be able to identify human bones. In my defense, I _was_ chained up at the bottom of a dark well, in two feet of water.”

“Oh, God, John,” Sherlock murmured, and before he could stop himself he had pulled John into his arms. His heart was hammering in his chest and he could feel himself trembling. He rested his cheek on the top of John’s head and took a deep breath, barely registering the dank smell of well water over the feel of John warm and alive in his arms. 

“Sherlock? What… what’s wrong?”

“I thought I was… I thought you had….” It was all he could get out. He wasn’t entirely sure whether he was holding John to reassure himself of his aliveness or hanging on to him for support. 

“Oh,” quietly. A brief pause, and then John shifted, working his arms free of the blanket and putting them around Sherlock’s waist. “It’s okay. I’m okay,” he murmured, patting Sherlock’s back gently. “You did it, you saved me. I didn’t drown, like you asked, and you found me, like you said you would.” 

“Yes,” he sighed. John’s arms around him were warm and reassuringly firm, and he felt the tide of adrenaline and panic begin to recede. His heartbeat slowed and his legs started to feel like they could hold him again. The world was righting itself. 

Lestrade’s voice rose from the other side of the ambulance, calling out orders to his minions. Sherlock took a deep breath and, with a tiny stab of regret, let go of John and took a step back. 

“You all right?” John’s hand was on his arm, his gaze sharp on Sherlock’s face.

He nodded, not trusting himself to speak. He was exhausted more than anything else. The ordeal of the past few hours had taken its toll. His guard was down, defenses shattered. If he started confessing what was in his heart now, he’d never stop. 

“Do you have any idea who—“

“Victor Trevor,” he interrupted, pleased to hear that his voice was firm and steady. “Seven years old, a childhood friend of mine. My best friend.”

“Eurus?” John said under his breath.

He sighed. “Eurus. She didn’t have any friends or even one friend – how could she? Even at that young age she was as like her peers as chalk to cheese. Mycroft and I were the only ones who could understand her, could tolerate her. And we were probably the only ones she could stand to be around.”

He could understand the look of horror on John’s face, but all he could feel for Eurus was a deep, vast sadness. He’d been keenly aware of the gulf between himself and others, had emphasized it at times, but he’d been able to bridge it, with John’s help. Eurus would never be able to. 

“I don’t know if she wanted to get rid of the competition for my time, or just wanted to play a game with me – or both, perhaps. In any event, Victor was just a means to her.”

“Christ,” John muttered.

“Like you and Mycroft were,” he added. “A means to get me to play her game, play with her. To find her and bring her home.” 

“But… why pretend to be Faith Smith? Why come to you pretending to ask for help? Why play therapist with me – hell, forget why, _how_ was she able to do that?”

“I don’t know,” he said, as the police escorted Eurus from the house towards the waiting vans. She watched him, her face streaked with tears, and he watched her back. 

Lestrade was striding towards them. “I’ve just talked to your brother.”

“How is he?”

“He’s a bit shaken up, that’s all. She didn’t hurt him, she just locked him in her old cell.” 

“What goes around, comes around,” John said dryly. 

“Yeah.” Lestrade saw one of the officers coming out of the house towards them. “Give me a moment, boys.”

“Oh, about Mycroft,” he said quickly, and when Lestrade turned around added, “Make sure he’s looked after – he’s not as strong as he thinks he is.”

“I’ll take care of it.”

“Thanks, Greg.”

He ignored John’s surprised look and turned his attention back towards Eurus. She was being helped into one of the vans; once she was seated on the bench, she looked up at him. He met her gaze evenly. He wasn’t going to look away. Not this time. Not ever again. 

The officer closed and locked the doors but Sherlock kept his eyes on Eurus, kept watching until the van dwindled to a tiny white dot at the end of the road, then disappeared around a curve. 

“You okay?” John asked.

He sighed, guilt heavy as a stone in his chest. “I said I’d bring her home. I can’t, can I?”

“Well, you gave her what she was looking for: context.”

He looked round at John. Context. That was what Eurus had kept saying at Sherrinford, and here. Emotional context. “Is that good?”

John shrugged. “It’s not good, it’s not bad. It’s…” He looked away from Sherlock, searching for words, and then looked back, commiseration in his eyes, the corner of his mouth crooked in a brief smile. “It is what it is.”

He smiled back, the memory of saying those words to John lifting the weight in his chest a little. “I guess it is.”

***  
He hadn’t expected that John would be willing to help him clean up the Baker Street flat – after all, John had his own flat, and a daughter to care for as well. But he was there the morning after they returned from Musgrave, and every morning after that, helping Sherlock sift through the debris and decide what to keep and what was too burned, too damaged. 

“There’s something I still don’t understand,” John said without much preamble one morning. They were sorting through the debris from the lounge, books and pictures and other knickknacks, all covered with a thin film of soot. “Why this? Why the grenade? Why try to kill us if she wanted us to come to Sherrinford?”

He shrugged as he leafed through a stack of books. “I don’t know. Maybe it was a test – if we survived, we were worthy to move on to the next phase? Inclusion criteria for her experiment?” 

John made a noise, and Sherlock looked up, his observational powers focusing almost automatically. John wasn’t sleeping – not just lack of sleep, which might be expected of anyone caring for a newborn, but not able to sleep when he had the opportunity. His skin tone was sallow and Sherlock could see that he had lost weight over the past month, nearly a stone. So, not eating, or at least not eating well. The faint scent he could detect under the overpowering miasma of cheap cologne – itself a red flag, since John was not given to using scented hygiene items and had markedly better taste when he did – suggested that John was getting the majority of his calories from alcohol. 

“How are your parents taking it?” John asked, picking up a pile of magazines, oblivious to Sherlock’s deductions.

“Poorly. They want to visit but she’s not talking to anyone, including me.” He caught John’s frown. “Yes, I’ve visited her.”

“Do you think that’s wise?”

“You disapprove?”

John snorted. “Yeah. She’s a psychopath who twists everyone she talks to – she made a man shoot himself, shot his wife, killed at least two innocent people, nearly drowned me, tried to force you to kill me…”

“There was never any chance of that.”

“Maybe you should have considered it,” John muttered under his breath.

“What does _that_ mean?” he snapped. It came out sounding harsher than he’d intended, but there was an icy feeling of apprehension growing in the pit of his stomach. He’d admittedly been preoccupied with the puzzle of Eurus and dealing with the damage to the flat, but now that he was paying attention he didn’t like the way John looked, and didn’t like the way this conversation was going. 

John exhaled and dumped the magazines he’d been sorting through into a box marked “Rubbish”. “Nothing.”

He narrowed his eyes. “John.” 

“It’s just…” John rubbed his forehead. He was standing in profile to Sherlock, his shoulders slumped. His voice was low and thick. “What… what happened in the morgue, that was… I _hurt_ you, Sherlock. That’s… that’s unforgiv—”

“It’s fine,” he interrupted, his own throat tightening. 

“It’s not. It’s really not.” 

_It’s not the first time I’ve taken a beating from someone I’ve cared about,_ he wanted to say, but he knew that would not be received well. He ran a hand through his hair as he searched for what to say that would reach John. “Look, visiting her, it helps – it helps me understand something. That you were right.”

The corner of John’s mouth twitched upwards slightly, but otherwise he was motionless, hands on hips, eyes on the floor, shoulders still slumped. 

“Eurus, she’s what I might have become,” he continued, “what I wanted to become. Or thought I did, anyway. She’s completely separate from her emotions. So separate that she doesn’t understand them – in herself or others. She doesn’t understand pain, or joy, can’t tell screaming from laughter.” 

“She seems to understand loneliness. And jealousy,” John said quietly, still not looking at him.

“All right, so not completely separate. But enough so that they’re mysteries to her. That was how I beat her, how I won. I surprised her, when I wouldn’t kill you or Mycroft, but turned the gun on myself instead. She hadn’t predicted that, because she didn’t understand my emotions.” 

That made John look at him. “Were you really…?”

“Of course not. Knew she wouldn’t let me go through with it. Had to force her to show her next move.”

“Which was to put me in a well.”

“And give me a riddle that I couldn’t solve until I had some emotional context – until I remembered what had happened before.” 

John gave a small half-smile. “So it’s no longer the grit in the lens, is it?”

“No, it still is. Emotion can still distort things, make it hard to see clearly. But sometimes it helps. Sometimes it gives you the advantage, gives you information you need. It’s a kind of knowing, like intuition – a kind I admit I ignored for far too long.” He bent down to pick up another stack of books. “So, you see – you were right and I admit it: sentiment is important.”

As he stood, he caught John’s reflection in the mirror over the fireplace out of the corner of his eye. He’d expected to see a triumphant smile on his face, maybe even hear an ‘I told you so’, but instead his expression was one of deep and profound sadness.

Molly’s voice echoed in his head. _You look sad when you think he can’t see you_

He turned quickly towards John but the expression was gone, replaced with a tight grin. “Well, I’m glad we can agree that Sherlock Holmes is human, and has impulses and needs, after all.”

“I thought we’d already agreed to that,” he said slowly, trying to puzzle out what had just happened. 

“Yeah.” John reached out and patted him on the shoulder. “Now you just need to get someone in your life who can help you with that.”

This again. His heart sank. He’d tried to confess his feelings to John before, only to be interrupted by John’s confession of infidelity. He wasn’t sure he had it in him to do it again, but if he didn’t, John would be trying to set him up with women for the rest of their lives. Especially now that he had acknowledged having emotions. “John,” he started wearily, “I know you think—”

“Yoo hoo!” Mrs. Hudson rapped on the door jamb. “Sherlock, there’s someone here about the windows. Should I send him up?”

“A moment, Mrs. Hudson—” he began.

But John was backing away, shaking his head, hand up. “No, no, take care of this – I’ll be downstairs with Mrs. Hudson.”

Except that he wasn’t, once Sherlock got rid of the tradesman and made it downstairs. And Mrs. Hudson hadn’t seen him. “I’m sure he just went home to see to Rosie,” she said brightly.

He was not so sure. John had seemed better after he had confessed the affair to Sherlock – and whatever other ghosts had been in the room at the time – but now he seemed to be slipping away again, just as he had after Mary’s death. 

There had been a number of shocks, of course. Finding out a secret sister of his best friend was not only impersonating his therapist, but had also tempted him into an emotional affair would throw anyone off. Not to mention their ordeal in Sherrinford, where John had not only seen a man kill himself, but steeled himself to give up his own life as well, and then nearly been drowned on top of it. 

But he couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something else going on. He had texted John an “All right?” a few times, but the answer always came back, after several hours: “Fine.” 

He was at the point of going over to John’s flat when John called him. “Uh, yeah, I… I think you’d better get round here,” he said. 

***

_My Baker Street boys_

_Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson_

Sherlock frowned at the TV as Mary’s message came to an end and the screen shifted to snow. How on Earth was she doing this? To continue to send messages – she must have a confederate, perhaps more than one, somewhere. But she would have had to anticipate all that they had gone through with Eurus, wouldn’t she? Perhaps not. Maybe it would have been enough to simply leave instructions to send the DVD after a specific time. But why?

Mind whirling, he picked up the plain white envelope and examined it closely. A standard plain white mailer, available at a myriad of places – no help there. Address written in Sharpie in a bold masculine hand. Slight wobbles in the downstrokes – a tremor or something… injury? Trauma? Fear? Difficult to say. Postmarked from one of the busiest parts of London. Impossible to know if it originated from there or was simply dropped off – perhaps if he steamed off the stamp, that would yield more relevant information. And then there was the DVD itself… perhaps there were fingerprints, or lint, or ash….

He moved towards the TV, then realized that it was off. He turned to see John sitting on the couch, his head in his hands, the remote on the table in front of him. 

Anger flooded through him, so bright and sharp that it made his head swim. 

This was his fault. He’d been so focused on wanting to make up for the years of pain and grief he’d caused John that he hadn’t paid attention to what was going on. He’d fallen prey to the cardinal error that he’d always mocked others for: he had seen but had not observed. He’d done his best to forgive Mary, encouraged John to forgive her, return to her, never seeing the truth, never seeing, until this moment, how much she had damaged him.

What John had told him after they’d caught Smith – that he actually believed that he wouldn’t have saved Sherlock’s life without Mary’s urging – was ridiculous. This was the man who had coolly fired a kill shot over an incredible distance less than 48 hours after they’d met. The man who had been willing to get himself blown up with Moriarty just so Sherlock could get to safety. The man who had never stopped believing in him, even when all the world thought he was a fraud. 

He wanted that John Watson back, _his_ John Watson, who was brave and loyal and funny, with nerves of steel and an unshakeable moral center. Not this grim shadow mired in guilt and misery, who was drinking too much and not taking care of himself. 

He took a deep breath. Being angry at himself and at Mary wasn’t going to help John now. He sat down next to John, tossing the mailer on the table, and cleared his throat.

“I don’t care,” John said flatly.

“Don’t care?” Contradictions worked better for interrogations, but somewhere he’d read that simply repeating what someone said was a good way to get them to open up to you. 

“What you can find out from that thing. I don’t care. I’m done with it all. Done with her. I can’t… I can’t keep on….” He trailed off, shaking his head. Sherlock saw him glance furtively towards the wine bottles at the back of the kitchen counter, saw the tremor in his left hand, saw him clench it into a fist. 

It made his heart ache. He had to do something. He couldn’t let this continue, couldn’t let John slip away like this. Not after everything they had been through. Not after he had come to understand what John meant to him. 

“John,” he started, but John sucked in a breath and stood up.

“I need to check on Rosie, if you don’t mind? I’ll… I’ll see you tomorrow, Sherlock.” He turned away, towards the bedrooms at the back of the flat.

He grabbed John’s arm. “Wait.” 

John turned towards him, a glimmer of his old inquisitiveness visible under his fatigue.

And it made his heart ache even more, that after all John Watson had been through, all the heartache and trauma and pain of the last few years, the misery that Sherlock had put him through, that Mary had put him through, that he was still here, still game, still willing to go along with whatever he, Sherlock, needed from him. Still willing to put his own desires, his own needs to the side. It made his throat close up, realizing how John had always been there for him, and even if he’d had the words they wouldn’t have been able to get through. 

So he took a step forward and kissed John instead. 

John didn’t respond, and his heart sank so low it felt like he’d swallowed a chunk of lead. He stepped back, feeling his cheeks burn. “I’m sorry,” he managed to get out, trying not to look directly at John, not wanting to see the shock and disgust on his face. “I… I didn’t mean… I should have….”

“You _tosser_ ,” John breathed, and then he grabbed the lapels of Sherlock’s coat and pulled him in close for another kiss.

And that was unbelievable bliss, John’s mouth warm and insistent on his. He tried to touch John’s face, but his arms were somehow held at his sides, he couldn’t move, and then he realized that it was because John was pushing his coat off his shoulders and he wriggled out of it and then finally – finally! – he could hold John’s head in his hands, feel the curve of his skull against his palms, his soft fine hair brushing against his fingers, and close his eyes and give himself completely over to kissing John back. 

John pulled away, and Sherlock made a noise of complaint in the back of his throat and opened his eyes. Somehow he’d ended up on his back on the couch, and John’s face was hovering above him, giving him that bright, quick smile that he loved but so rarely saw, lately. 

He touched John’s mouth, traced his lips lightly with a fingertip. Amazing that something so ordinary could create such sensation inside him. John’s eyes fluttered closed, and then snapped open. But he was still smiling, and his lips were moving, and Sherlock realized that he was saying something. 

“…lock. Sherlock.”

Sherlock took a deep breath, and became aware of a reedy high wail from the back of the flat.

“Sherlock. I really do have to go check on Rosie.”

He nodded, and took another deep breath. There was so much he wanted to say, but the connection between his brain and his mouth was still a little scrambled and he didn’t think he was going to have his usual level of eloquence. He smiled, and stroked John’s cheek lightly. 

John leaned down and planted a quick kiss on his mouth. “Wait here. I’ll be right back.” He pushed himself off the couch and headed down the hallway. 

He sat up, trying to pull himself together, inside and out. Despite what Mycroft thought, sex wasn’t a mystery to him at all. It had become patently clear to him, fairly early on, that sex was one of the primary motivators of human behavior. And if he was going to be a detective, well, he had to understand why people did things.

So he’d responded the same way as he usually did to gaps in his knowledge: he’d undertaken an exhaustive study of the subject. Men, women, pairs, groups, oral, anal, penetrative, frotting, bondage, submission… if it involved one or more human beings over the age of 18 he tried it. Not a difficult thing to do while at university. 

And he did understand the allure. Physical release felt good – not as good as cocaine or heroin, but pretty close. It helped alleviate the boredom some of the time. But he didn’t get emotionally involved. That interfered too much with observation and deduction. The neurochemical aftereffects took long enough to shake; he couldn’t imagine how long the emotional repercussions would last. Judging by the observations he made of Sebastian and his fellow students, they were chronic and highly disruptive.

Of course, there had also been that part of him that insisted emotional attachment was weak and dangerous. The part that had changed his memories, tried to protect him from the knowledge of what Eurus had done to Victor. The part that Mycroft had monitored and encouraged. 

The part he now knew was wrong. Emotional attachment – emotional context, well, it was necessary. Important. Essential. What was it John had said? Romantic entanglements… _would complete you as a human being._

It would seem John had been right. But then, wasn’t he usually?

As if his thought had called him, he heard the sound of John’s footsteps coming up the hall and he stood and turned to face him. John came to within less than a handsbreadth of him, looking up at him steadily. His hands were gently flexing and unflexing in the pattern that Sherlock had come to associate with nervous anticipation. “So, where were we… married to your work, wasn’t it?”

He smiled. “Of which you are an integral part.”

John laughed, his familiar soft huff of breath, but his eyes were serious and they didn’t leave Sherlock’s face. “You shot me down, that night at Angelo’s.” 

And even though they’d had dinner hundreds of times at Angelo’s, he knew precisely the night John was talking about. “I made a mistake.”

“A mistake? You?”

“I’m only human, John,” he said, “Can I have a do-over?” and bent his head to kiss him. 

This time it was gentle, and slow, and rather than drowning in the feel of John’s mouth on his he was able to make notes in his head as they went along about what John liked. Hands on John’s hips – good, kissing along the bottom of his jaw – good, tongue brushing over his lips, _very_ good. And he was learning what he liked, as well. He liked John’s warm strong hand on the back of his neck and the feel of John’s body hard against his and hearing John murmur his name in a low, shaky voice. And if hands on hips was good, he decided it would be worth it to see what the reaction would be to his hands on John’s arse.

And then John was walking backwards down the hall, tugging him along by the lapels of his suit jacket, and he was following, trying to undo John’s belt and not to lose contact with his mouth at the same time. Miraculously they ended up in John’s bedroom without either of them tripping over each other or their own feet. He shrugged out of his jacket, and started unzipping John’s fly, while John was doing his best to unbutton Sherlock’s shirt with trembling fingers. 

They collapsed onto the bed in a tangle of limbs and clothes, and after a brief tussle Sherlock found himself flat on his back, shirt open, trousers undone, with John perched over him, bare-chested, hemming Sherlock in with his elbows and knees.

“I have been waiting six years for this,” John said softly, “you enormous git.” The sharpness of his words was belied by the warmth in his eyes and the way the tip of his tongue slid out to lick his lips. 

But the reminder sobered him. So many missteps he had made along the way. If he hadn’t disappeared for two years, pretending to be dead. If he had contacted John at some point during that time, just a word, something to let him know he was alive. If he’d said what was in his heart standing on the tarmac after shooting Magnusson. Where would they be today, if he’d had the courage to do any of those? 

It was time – well past time – for him to be honest. 

He lifted his hands to frame John’s face and held his gaze steadily. “I am sorry,” he said. “I love you.” 

He hadn’t thought it was possible for John to look more fierce and beautiful than he already did, but the depth of emotion he saw in those dark blue eyes took his breath away. 

John leaned forward and kissed him, hard, and then began to work his way slowly downwards, caressing every inch of his body with fingers and mouth and tongue. He groaned, feeling his skin flush, his nerve endings sparkling like fireworks. 

He had never put much stock in the notion that sex was better if you had an emotional attachment to your partner. Sex was sex, it was the science of stimulation and release, and the other bodies involved didn’t affect his response at all.

That was another thing he’d been wrong about, though. Ridiculously, thoroughly wrong. The fact that it was John running his hands over his chest, John looking up at him from underneath dark lashes, John nipping at the skin on his abdomen was making his breath come short and his heart thump erratically.

When John got to his waist he grasped both trousers and pants and tugged them off, then sat back on his heels and gazed in frank admiration at Sherlock’s freed cock, half-hard and lightly flushed. “Look at you,” he breathed, one hand resting on Sherlock’s ankle. 

He could feel John’s gaze on his body like a physical caress and it frayed his already-slim self-control. He arched his back, letting his knees fall to either side, tilting his hips up, displaying himself for John, feeling himself grow harder at the answering heat in John’s eyes. 

John’s hand slid down from Sherlock’s ankle to his heel and he lifted his foot, then slid his thumb lightly across the arch. Sherlock gasped and shivered, and John smiled wickedly. “Knew this would be a sensitive spot for you,” he said. He bent his head and sucked on each of Sherlock’s toes in turn, all the while stroking his arch. Then he started to slowly work his way up Sherlock’s leg. 

He clenched his teeth on the undignified moan that tried to come out of his mouth, but he couldn’t stop his involuntary twitch as John bit gently on the underside of his knee. He reached down and curved his fingers around John’s head, tangling his fingers in John’s hair, tugging at it as John’s mouth moved up his inner thigh towards his groin, hoping John would get the hint. 

“Patience,” John breathed as he reached the juncture of Sherlock’s leg and hip. His breath ghosted warm and damp across Sherlock’s taut and aching cock, and this time he couldn’t hold his moan in. He heard John chuckle as he slid down to Sherlock’s other foot. 

“Please, John,” he whimpered, “… please….” He was dizzy with want, awareness narrowed down to the feel of John’s mouth and hands on him and the throb in his gut. Slowly John moved up his other leg, and then, with no preamble, pulled the tip of Sherlock’s cock into his mouth and started sucking gently. 

“Oh… oh….” he gasped, the warmth and pressure almost overwhelming. John’s head bobbed up and down, taking him in deeper each time, his tongue stroking the sensitive underside of his cock, teasing at the spot where head joined shaft. He grabbed John’s head and started to thrust up to match his rhythm. 

There was nothing in his world but this, but John, the heat and wetness of his mouth, John’s hands on his hips, the scent of him filling his nostrils. He was surrounded by John, drowning in him, merged with him, a part of him forever. Always the two of them, always together. 

John’s hands had slid around to cup his arse, helping to control his thrusts, and then he felt John’s finger teasing, very gently, at his opening, and it was like somebody had shot a rocket off inside of him. “J-John,” he stuttered, breathless, “oh, _fuck_ yes…”

“Yeah, probably not tonight,” John said, pulling off his cock briefly, “but soon. Fucking, that is.” He grinned up at Sherlock and then bent his head and wrapped his mouth around him again.

Sherlock shuddered and tried to say something in return, but it came out as a more of a wail, because there was a wave of pleasure rolling up his spine like a tsunami and he was rocking with it as he clenched his fists in the sheets and came so hard his toes curled. 

He melted back onto the bed, ripples of pleasure echoing through his limbs. He dimly felt John clambering up the bed to lie next to him, and then John was fumbling for Sherlock’s hand and shoving it down into his half-open jeans, muttering, “Oh, Christ, Sherlock, please, touch me, just touch me”.

He wasn’t sure he could get his hands to obey, the connection between them and his brain still short-circuited by a flood of endorphins, but he tried to oblige as best he could. It turned out to not make much difference, though, because all it took was his hand wrapped loosely around John’s cock, a few short, clumsy strokes, and then John was rutting against him and moaning and coming all over himself and Sherlock. 

They lay like that for a few minutes, then John rolled over on his back, still trying to catch his breath, and Sherlock rolled with him, fitting himself against John’s side, head on John’s shoulder. He still had his hand down John’s pants. He closed his eyes and drifted a little, enjoying the feel of John’s body coming down from orgasm, his breathing as it slowed and deepened, the muscles under his hand relaxing. 

“Sorry,” John said, “that was over a bit faster than I expected.”

Sherlock didn’t have the energy to speak but made an interrogative hum and opened his eyes to find John had turned his head and was gazing at him with that familiar look of adoration that Sherlock hadn’t seen since their early days. He’d missed that look so much. 

“Christ, you’re gorgeous when you come, Sherlock,” John murmured. “Nearly set me off just that alone.”

He smiled, feeling quite pleased with himself. He hadn’t even been consciously trying for that. His brain was starting to shake off the endorphin-induced haze and he found himself calculating the probability of success for a variety of scenarios in which he tried to make John come without touching him. “Well, you did say you had been waiting six years.”

John turned his head to stare up at the ceiling. “The woman on the bus – well, Eurus, actually, but I didn’t know that at the time – I said I texted her back because I wanted more.” He took a deep breath. “I did want more – I wanted you. I always have. But you turned me down—”

“I explained that.”

John glared at him and kept talking. “And then you were dead, and I met Mary, and it wasn’t right, but it was better than anything else…”

“Undoubtedly because she was a retired assassin, given your propensity for being attracted to dangerous people.”

“Will you shut up? I’m trying to get something off my chest… and then you were back, and… and….” He took another deep breath. “…you were being so _helpful_ and supportive, with the wedding and all, I figured it was time I stopped deluding myself. Clearly you weren’t interested, never had been.” 

He lifted his hand and placed it gently on the center of John’s chest. “And I thought I had forfeited any rights I might have to your heart when I pretended to be dead. I thought Mary and a normal life was what you wanted, and I was so blinded by my own disappointment that I didn’t notice that you weren’t happy.” 

“I _was_ happy, at first,” John mused. “When you first came back, when we were planning the wedding, before I knew how many lies there were. Before I knew that it was all lies.” 

“Are you all right?” They seemed to be asking each other that quite a lot lately. 

John turned and smiled at him. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m all right. I’m perfect, now, actually.”

He wondered if he was ever going to get used to the burst of warmth in his chest that he felt when John looked at him that way. He hoped not.

He pushed himself up and moved in lazily for a kiss that quickly turned into multiple wet and messy ones. He was wondering how long John’s refractory period was when the sounds of infant distress erupted from the baby monitor on the bedside table. 

John pulled back and sighed. “Nap time is over, I’m afraid. Time for food.” 

“Can I help?”

John shot him a slightly incredulous glance as he sat up and swung his legs over the edge of the bed, fumbling around in the pile of clothes on the floor and pulling out his shirt. “Want to make something for tea?”

“Of course.” He rolled off the other side of the bed, grabbing pants and trousers as he went, and pulled them on. 

While John set a bottle to heat in a pan of water and went to get Rosie, Sherlock combed through the cupboards and the fridge and found enough to make a passable spag bol. He made faces at Rosie while John fed her and he cooked, and then held her while John ate, noting with pleasure how eagerly John tucked in to the meal. He had a few bites off John’s second helping just so he’d stop fussing at him to eat.

John put his knife and fork on the plate and sat back. “That was really good,” he said, “thanks.”

“You’re welcome.” Rosie made an unhappy sound on his knee. “Sounds like someone needs changing.”

“It’s time for her bath, anyway.” John held out his arms and he handed Rosie over. 

He put the kettle on to make tea and cleaned up the dishes while he listened to John talk to Rosie in the bath, then come out and put her in her playpen while he took a quick shower. As he put the last dish in the drainer, John came back into the kitchen, dressed in pyjamas, smelling like soap. He came up behind Sherlock and put his arms around his waist, resting his head against Sherlock’s shoulder. “I meant to say, earlier - I love you, too.”

He chuckled. “I think you did say that. At least that’s what I was hearing when you had my cock in your mouth.” He wiped his hands dry, then turned and asked John, “Can I use your shower?”

“Of course. There’s towels in the cupboard, and a spare dressing gown on the hook. And I think there’s an old pair of pyjama bottoms in there that might fit you.”

When he emerged twenty minutes later, in pyjamas and gown plus an old t-shirt of John’s that was just a shade too snug across his chest, John was sitting on the couch in the lounge, two mugs of tea on the table in front of him. He was holding the DVD in his hands. 

He grabbed one of the mugs and perched sideways on the couch, wriggling his bare feet under John’s legs for warmth. Rosie was watching them from her back in the playpen, gurgling as she tried to grab her feet. 

John leaned back and sighed. “So what now?” 

“Come back to Baker Street. We can turn your old room into a nursery for Rosie.” John didn’t say anything and he went on, “Take your own advice. ‘Do something while there’s still a chance’.”

John laughed, a short huff of air. “I was talking about Irene and High Wycombe.”

“We can go to High Wycombe sometime if you want. Irene will be overjoyed to hear about it – she asks me every time she texts if I’ve taken you to bed yet.” At John’s splutter he added, “You _do_ know she’s gay, don’t you?”

“And yet she flirts with you.” But he was smiling, another one of his real, honest smiles, not the tight, brittle ones he’d been giving Sherlock for the last year. 

“As do you.”

The smile deepened. “Yeah, yeah I do.” He turned the DVD over in his hands and made as if to snap it in half. 

He put out a hand to stop him. “Are you sure you want to do that?”

“Why not? This is just more lies, manipulative bullshit. She didn’t know who we really are. You’re way more than just a junkie, and I’m more than just a soldier. And on top of that she was wrong, it does matter. It matters to me.”

He nodded. “While I agree with you, some of it is part of who we really are. And it’s a part of who she was. Someday you may – no, you _will_ want Rosie to know about that.” At John’s skeptical glance, he added, “Trust me – I think if there’s anything we can say we’ve learned from the past few weeks, it’s just how damaging keeping family secrets can be.” 

John sobered at that, and slid the DVD back into the packaging.

He put his hand out. “Give it to me, I’ll put it someplace safe, where she won’t find it until you’re ready to talk to her about it.” John handed it to him, and he put his tea down on the table, then slid the mailer into his coat pocket. He had meant what he said; he would put it somewhere safe – but first he was going to find out who had sent it. And why. 

“So what now?” he echoed John, picking up his tea. 

“Well, there’s some football on.”

He rolled his eyes, but it was more for John’s benefit than any real irritation. He was reasonably confident that he could get John back in bed before the first period was half over. “Football is fine.”


End file.
